Story of Bali, Indonesia

On feast days, the roads are crowded' with processions of people in silks and brocades, walking in easily broken lines behind their orchestras and their gods, gods represented' by temporary minute images seated in small sedan chairs,, gods represented by images made of leaves and flowers; gods which are masks or -bits of old relics. With the processions mingle groups of people grimed from work, hurrying lightly beneath heavy loads; and theatrical troupes, their paint and fine costumes tucked away in little bundles, trudge wearily behind the two-man mask, the patron dragon (Barong) who walks quietly with covered face.

To this may be added the heady images of a roadside procession: a group of 30 men or so in chorus singing long melodious chords, interspersed with a band of body-resonating giant gongs, throbbing drums, and cymbals; a small forest of Colored tassel

'Mere was none of the perfume and sultriness of so much music in the East, for there is nothing purer than the bright clean sound of metal, cool and ringing and dissolving in the air. Nor was it personal and romantic, in the manner of our effusive music, but rather, sound broken up into beautiful patterns.

It was, however, more than this, as I was to find out. Already I began to have a feeling of form and elaborate architecture. Gradually the music revealed itself as being composed, as it were of different strata of sound. Over a slow and chant-like bass that hummed with curious penetration the melody moved in the middle register, fluid, free, appearing and vanishing in the incessant shimmering arabesques that rang high in the treble a-, though beaten out on a thousand little anvils. Gongs of different sizes punctuated this stream of sound, divided and- subdivided it into sections and inner sections, giving it meter and meaning.

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